


The Adventure of the Illustrious Idiot

by marysutherland



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: ACD Canon, Case Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-22
Updated: 2011-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-26 10:19:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/281919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marysutherland/pseuds/marysutherland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Black comedy adaptation of "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client", in which BBC Sherlock kicks ACD when he's down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for a kinkmeme [ Make me a Monday prompt](http://community.livejournal.com/sherlockbbc/1651936.html?thread=23120352#t23120352) and betaed by [warriorbot](http://warriorbot.livejournal.com/)
> 
> Warnings: violence, drug abuse, swearing, aggressively implicit slash.

[From the Sherlock Holmes in Transcript (SHT) project, version 1.0]

I believe some authors give warnings at the start of their work. I'll therefore say right now, don't read this transcript if you're stupid. Or easily offended. Unfortunately, you're almost certainly either stupid or easily offended, if not both, because most people are. So if you carry on reading this, don't say you weren't warned.

And let me make one other thing clear. This is about a case, but it isn't one of my case reports and it has nothing to do with John's blogging. My case reports are for my eyes only, and they deal solely with deductive methodology. John's blog posts are the outpourings of the more juvenile and sentimental side of him, clothing the hard facts of criminality with layers of suffocating verbiage for the delectation of a few pathetic readers on the internet. But there was no deduction in this case, and it's not one that should be put on the net, however anonymised. You can't make these events entertaining or enjoyable: this is about people getting hurt, badly hurt at times. I'm recording this because some day, someone will want to know the truth. Future historians of Britain, thank me now.

***

John was living in Queen Anne Street at the time, so I met him at the Endell Street sauna. We both have a weakness for the place, and it's one of my favourite spots when I need to see him, to be with him. To be human. He'd moved out of Baker Street soon after we started sleeping together. I made him move out, because otherwise there'd have been nothing left of me.

People looked at John when we first became flatmates and saw a put-upon man. They didn't see him working on me, the slow drip, drip of water that can wear away a stone. I've been reliably informed that I don't have a heart. I certainly don't have one now. That's because John Watson found it and stole it, the bastard.

When things became...physical between us, I knew I had to protect myself. Protect John as well, maybe. For three months I couldn't think straight with him around. Because when he was in the same room, the same flat, the same postcode, all my body and mind wanted was his body and mind. There was nothing but the urge to pour myself into the Sherlock-shaped hole in him. It was awful beyond belief, feeling like...just feeling. And even after that initial period, when it got so that I could forget him, sometimes, for minutes at a time, concentrate on a case, I still couldn't let him back, not fully back.

The real problem is, John makes me good. Or better, at least. I've met other good men before, but no-one whose goodness is quite so contagious, or contagious to me, at any rate. John's my moral compass, the man who's made me feel things I've never felt before, care about things. You can see why I have to stop him taking over my life, don't you? Restrict my intake of him - stop sniggering, you dirty-minded perverts - to carefully calculated doses? Because otherwise there'd be none of my greatness left. His goodness, his ordinary common decency - uncommon decency - would destroy what makes me a detective: the ability to look at people as dots, combinations of molecules, and to spot the patterns. You can't analyse a game of chess, let alone win it, if you worry about a pawn being captured, destroyed, because it's got a wife and family. Caring for people not only doesn't help, it entangles the mind, my mind, destroys the objectivity that I need to observe the truth.

The thing I fear most is that one day John will be murdered. Not just because I would lose him forever, though that's almost unbearable. But because that will be the crime I will be unable to solve, however obvious the killer is. I can never think clearly if John is hurt or in danger. Like the time he'd been captured by General Shan, and I was trying to untie Sarah, because that was what he needed me to do, and I couldn't shake off that bloody thug of Shan's, couldn't work out how to save John or Sarah. He saved us all, of course, and made a joke about it, afterwards. He has his own form of greatness. But you didn't come here to hear about John, did you? You came to hear about me, the great Sherlock Holmes. Well, if you didn't, sod off to the John Watson Jumper Appreciation Society, or whatever it is. Just don't forget he's mine, even if I don't live with him anymore.

***

We were in an isolated corner in the lounge bar of the sauna, when I showed John the letter I'd been sent.

“It may be some fussy, self-important fool; it may be a matter of life or death,” I said. "If I'm really lucky it may involve the death of some fussy, self-important fool."

"So Sir James Damery is coming round to see you tomorrow at 4.30 pm, about a 'very delicate and important matter'," said John, thus proving he could read a simple letter. "Why's he writing to you, not just phoning or e-mailing?"

"Covering his back, I suspect. He's the sort of man who'd want all the unimportant details written in triplicate, and everything vital spoken only, in a place he can be sure isn't bugged."

"I've vaguely heard of Damery," John said, which surprised me. "Isn't he some kind of government special advisor? There was an article in the Guardian about him a week or two ago. I remember, because it mentioned something about him ensuring that the defence budget didn't get cut."

"He's slipping," I said. "His job's to keep things out of the papers, not appear in them himself. He's another government fixer."

"Like Mycroft?"

"Less important in many ways, and more concerned with...personal matters. He's the only reason half of the cabinet are still in it. And that several of them are still are in their closets."

"So it could be a worthwhile case?"

"I hope so, that it is something he really needs our assistance for." 

"Our?"

"If you're willing to help, John." He appreciates the formality of being asked, I've learnt that over time. A 'please' or two and he'll do almost anything. It almost makes courtesy seem worthwhile sometimes.

"I'd be delighted to."

"Right," I said. "Tomorrow, 4.15 pm sharp at 221B, and bring some biscuits and coffee, we're low. Until then we can put the matter out of our heads." Now I'd shown him the letter, I didn't need my trouser pockets anymore. Or my trousers.

***

Can I add at this point, that if you're reading this for sexual kicks, you can piss off. Go and find some Sherlock/John RPF, if they're still writing that crap, or just imagine what we were doing to one another. I'm not here to give you a thrill. I'm here to remind you why sex and love wreck people's lives. As you will see if you're stupid enough to read on.

***

Sir James Damery turned up promptly at 4.30 pm the next day, which meant John still hadn't finished the washing up. (He offered to - it's not my fault if he's paranoid about mould in cups!) It's hardly necessary to describe him – Damery, I mean - I could spend years describing every millimetre of John, but you'd still be too dense to appreciate him properly. It's hardly necessary to describe Damery, because he was a big, masterful, upper class idiot, and they're all much of a muchness. Oh, except for the fact that he had an Irish accent (carefully preserved over the years to add to his non-existent charm) and lavender socks.

"Of course, I was prepared to find Dr. Watson, after Mycroft's briefing,” he remarked, with a good humoured smile that made me want to torture him to death by inches. “His collaboration may be necessary. We are dealing on this occasion, Mr. Holmes, with a man to whom violence is familiar and who will, literally, stick at nothing. I should say that there is no more dangerous man in Europe.”

"Really?" I said, wishing he could have come up with something slightly more original. "Well, I suppose there's a current vacancy for the position, given between John and myself we've finished off Moriarty and Colonel Sebastian Moran in the last couple of years. May I ask the name of this dangerous man?”

“Have you ever heard of Baron Gruner?”

“You mean the Austrian murderer? An Austrian murderer, I suppose I should say. There's no shortage of them, after all.”

Damery threw up his hands with a laugh. I suspected he'd practiced the gesture in a mirror, along with the rest of his bogus 'honest' personality. “There's no getting past you, Mr. Holmes! Wonderful! So you've already sized him up as a murderer?”

“It's my business to follow the details of Continental crime," I pointed out. "And it's not exactly difficult when it's a case that got the European gossip sites alight. Gruner's wife 'accidentally' takes an overdose of paracetamol when they're travelling through the Splügen Pass. Gruner, however, doesn't realise this until they've travelled on to Prague, by which time it's too late to save her, and she dies of organ failure. And then the Baroness' maid, who was travelling with them, and so could say when the symptoms started to be visible, mysteriously falls off the Charles Bridge a week later, and the whole case gets so tangled up in jurisdictional quarrels that they can't even get a European arrest warrant out of it. Who could possibly have any doubts about the man’s guilt? There are entire websites dedicated to discussing the more sordid details. He's in England, now, I know, but I presume from your involvement that he's not just here for the libel tourism."

“No, it's far more serious. It's important to revenge crime, but even more so to prevent it. It's a terrible thing, Mr. Holmes, to see a dreadful event, an atrocious situation approaching, to understand clearly where it will lead, and yet be utterly unable to avert it. Can you imagine something more awful than that?"

"Well, it didn't seem to bother you before the invasion of Iraq," I said, "but I take it that this time it's personal."

Mycroft had briefed him well. His eyes flicked to John, as he worked out why I now cared about the Gulf War, and then he simply smiled again, and said blandly: 

“It's a personal matter, but not my own. I am acting in the interests of a client on this occasion."

“You didn't indicate before that you were merely an intermediary. Who's the client?”

“Mr. Holmes, I must beg you not to press that question. It is important that I should be able to assure him that his name has not been dragged into the matter. His motives are entirely honourable, but he prefers to remain anonymous. I need not say that your fees will be assured and that you will be given a perfectly free hand. Surely the actual name of your client is immaterial?”

"No, it's not," I said. "There are people I wouldn't help for all the manufacturing output of China. And besides, if I've got mysteries at both ends of the case, it gets too confusing. I always like to know at least one of the parties who's trying to screw me."

From the way Damery's eyes flicked at that, Mycroft's briefing had been rather too extensive. Then he concentrated on looking disappointed. In a frank and good-humoured way of course, the sort of "let the side down" expression that made my public school years so intolerable.

“You hardly realise the effect of your own action, Mr. Holmes,” he said.

"Yes, I do," I said, leaning back, and smiling at him. I can do frank and good-humoured as well, sometimes at least. “I've put you in a really serious dilemma. You're convinced I'll be prepared to take the case if you could give me the facts, and yet you've promised not to reveal them. It's a bugger sticking to your promises, isn't it, Sir James?"

"May I, at least, lay all that I can before you?”

"Lay away," I said. "But I'm not committing myself yet."

“That's understood. In the first place, you have no doubt heard of General de Merville?”

I looked at John. He doesn't usually say anything in client interviews, I find it too distracting, but he's useful at times like this.

“De Merville was in charge of the operations to protect the Khyber Pass supply route into Afghanistan a couple of years ago," he said. "Made quite a big impact." I took that to mean he'd blown a lot of things up.

“He has a daughter, Violet de Merville: young, rich, beautiful, accomplished. A wonderful woman in every way." Damery said. He didn't feel the need to mention her accomplishments. I suspected that they were mainly being young, rich and beautiful.

"It is this daughter," Damery said, "this lovely, innocent girl, whom we are endeavouring to save from Gruner's clutches.”

I was so fed up with his attitude by then that I nearly gave him the potted history of feminism that I have occasionally heard fall from Mrs Hudson's lips. (She was having her consciousness raised in 1970s California before she fell for the repulsive Mr Hudson, thus once again proving the stupefying effects of love).

“Baron Gruner has some hold over her, then?” I said instead, mainly in the hope that Damery would be forced to get a bit more explicit.

“The strongest of all holds where a woman is concerned — the hold of love. You'll have seen his photographs on the web. He's extremely handsome, with a very...sexy voice, and that air of mystery which means so much to women. He's said to have the whole sex at his mercy."

"Other than lesbians, of course," I said, which got a snort of laughter from John, at least.

“But how did he come to meet Ms Violet de Merville?” I asked. Not that it mattered, probably, but I was intrigued.

" 'The Rich are Different'," he said. I waited for him to explain, and he waited for me to say something astounding, and fortunately John intervened before the silence became completely overwhelming.

"It was some weird reality show, wasn't it?" he said. "Lots of rich and allegedly famous people all having to live together in bedsits and pretend they were ordinary, or something like that."

"And Ms de Merville and the Baron both took part?" I said. There was a certain logic there: a programme sufficiently desperate for celebrities might well decide that the attractive daughter of a general and an aristocratic uxoricide would help boost their ratings. 

"Yes," said Damery, "in Series 4. I believe they first bonded over a common refusal to do any washing up whatsoever. Gruner then attached himself to the lady, with such effect that he has completely won her heart. To say that she loves him hardly expresses it. She's obsessed by him, won't hear one word against him. Everything has been done to cure her of her madness, but in vain."

"When you say 'everything'," I asked, "do you really mean they've tried aversion therapy and some of the more exciting psychopharmaceuticals?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see John giving me a warning look that said 'don't alarm him too much, he wants to give us money'.

"I'm sorry," I added, "I realise this is distressing for you." That's one of the handy phrases that John has taught me, for when I want to demonstrate my commitment to client care.

"Not personally, of course," Damery replied, "But it is for my client. To sum up, Violet de Merville is proposing to marry Gruner next month, once she's finished her current modelling assignment. She's got a will of iron, so it's hard to know how to prevent her.”

“Does she know about the dead wife?”

“He's been very clever. He's told her every unsavoury scandal of his past life, but always in a way that makes himself out to be an innocent martyr. She absolutely believes him and won't listen to any other version." Damery paused, and then added, with a shudder: "She has been known to spend hours on the chat forums of www.evilgruner.com."

"Oh, dear God," I said. "Can you section people for being persistently wrong on the internet, John?" He shook his head.

"Right," I said, "so your client, Sir James, will do absolutely anything, including paying large sums of money to me" - I wanted to emphasise that point – "to put his daughter off the Baron. What kind of figure did General de Merville have in mind?"

Damery fidgeted in his chair.  
   
“I'm not going to deceive you, Mr. Holmes. De Merville isn't my client. He's been utterly demoralised by this incident, lost his nerve, become a weak, doddering old man. He's utterly incapable of dealing with a brilliant, forceful crook like Gruner."  
   
"You mean," I said, "he's an idiot who can't make his own daughter listen to him. That's a fairly common sort of idiocy. So who is your client?  
   
"An old friend, one who's known the General intimately for many years, and taken a paternal interest in this young girl since she was a child. He cannot see this tragedy happen without some attempt to stop it."  
   
I rapidly ran through my mind the older and more perverted members of Britain's upper classes (most of whose sons I had been at school or college with), and worked out the five most likely options for the client. Not that it mattered. I didn't need a knighthood or even a blackmail opportunity or two. I needed legitimate money and soon.

"So why come to me?" I asked.  
   
"There is nothing that Scotland Yard can do. It was my client's own suggestion that you should be called in, but it was, as I have said, on the express stipulation that he should not be personally involved in the matter. I have no doubt, Mr. Holmes, you could easily trace my client back through me, but I must ask you, as a point of honour, to refrain from doing so, and not to attempt to breach his anonymity.”  
   
Had he not read the bit of Mycroft's briefing where it mentioned my complete lack of scruples? Or had he just heard my accent, and decided I was a chap he could trust? John understood the concept of 'honour', but even he had never tried to get me to play by such stupid, petty rules. On the other hand, as I've indicated, I didn't really need to know the client. I just liked winding Sir James up.  
   
I gave him a smile. John might want to describe the type of smile it was. I'll just stick to telling you I smiled.  
   
“I think I can safely promise I won't try and trace your client,” I said. That gave me some leeway if I "accidentally" discovered who it was. “Well, your problem interests me sufficiently for me to look into it. How shall I keep in touch with you?”  
   
“The Carlton Club will find me. But in case of emergency, let me tell you my private phone number.”  
   
I entered it into my phone, and sat, still smiling, with it open.  
   
"The Baron’s current address, please?”  
   
“Vernon Lodge, near Kingston. It is a large house. He's been lucky in some rather shady speculations and is a rich man, which naturally makes him a more dangerous antagonist.”  
   
“Is he at home at the moment?”  
   
“Yes.”  
   
“Can you give me any further information about the man?”  
   
“He has expensive tastes, a horse fancier. For a short time he played polo at Hurlingham, but they got fed up with being referenced on so many true crime websites, and he had to leave. He collects books and pictures, a man with a considerable artistic side to his nature. He is, I believe, a recognised authority upon Chinese pottery and has written a book upon the subject.”  
   
“A complex mind,” I said. It sounded better than 'a versatile idiot'. "Well, Sir James, you can inform your client that I'm turning my attention to Baron Gruner. I won't say any more. I have some sources of information of my own, and I dare say we may find some means of opening the matter up.”  
   
I thought that was an impressively mysterious way of saying that I knew how to use Google, even if he didn't. I didn't bother to say that I could have got all the information that Damery had just given me with five minutes on the net. He was my client now, or rather the man behind him was.   
   
***  
   
When Damery had left us, I sat for a long time in deep thought. Mainly about exactly what I would do to John later on in the evening, but with occasional intervals of considering the case. Well, more the money it would bring in. There's a certain bizarre logic about my life nowadays. I need more money because there's two lots of rent to pay, so I take cases I wouldn't have done before. But when I've got a case on, I can cope with having John around without him driving me completely insane with lust or moral improvement. Then the case ends, and I have to get him out of my life - while I still have one - and we're back to square one again.  
   
At last I decided I'd impressed John enough with pretending to think logically, and came briskly back to earth.  
   
"Why do I get landed with a case involving sex-crazed idiots?" I said. "No, love-crazed idiots, which is worse. All right, John, this doesn't involve facts, just rancid dollops of emotional intelligence. Any views on what I should do?”  
   
“I think your best bet is to go and talk to Ms de Merville, see if you can get anywhere with her."  
   
"Not a hope," I said. "Right, if that's your view, it confirms it's too obvious a starting point. I think we need to start from a different angle. I rather fancy that Shinwell Johnson would be useful."  
   
John put his head in his hands and groaned. Not one of his happier groans, either. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock is attempting to prevent the villanous Baron Gruner from marrying the young, rich, and beautiful Violet de Merville. Shinwell Johnson may be able to help him...

John hasn't mentioned Shinwell Johnson on his blog, which is just as well, since he's an informer, and they prefer to keep a low profile. (Lower even then the almost negligible readership of John's blog). Even if he could mention him, however, I suspect John wouldn't want to. Shinwell is one of my more useful, but embarrassing informers, at least for John's sensibilities: he's my advisor on London's sex industry. He was once a very dangerous villain, and has served a term not only at Parkhurst, but also one at Holloway. The more alert among you will be able to work out the significance of that...

For the less alert among you, Parkhurst is a men's prison, Holloway is a women's prison. As 'Sinwell Johnson', Shinwell had a thriving career as a madam before ending up in Holloway; she then had a sex change operation and the newly-male Shinwell set out to control various other sex-orientated establishments. Nowadays, he's 'Factual Programmes Advisor' for an adult channel: there's more of a demand for nude chat shows than one would initially imagine. In between, s/he has also been a professional sub, an underwear model, and a web designer. I still have to remind him sometimes that if he wants continued employment by me he should limit his critiques of the 'Science of Deduction' style sheet.

***

"So why are you getting Johnson involved?" John asked, once I'd sent off a few texts to him.

"He's a good observer, he's got an active brain, and if there's a sex scandal about Gruner he'll dig it out. And I'm sure there must be a scandal about him, if he's as irresistible as Damery claims."

"But if Violet de Merville won't listen to what she's already been told about him, why should any new discovery change her mind?"

“It's worth a go, John. A woman’s heart and mind are insoluble puzzles to men. Well most men, though obviously not me. I've known women who were prepared to condone or explain away their husband committing murder and yet who got very heated about them putting their feet up on the table." I realised at that point that we were getting worryingly close to one or two facts about Mrs Hudson that John really would be better not knowing, so I added. "I have other lines of enquiry, of course."

"Which are?"

"It's better that you don't know about them at the moment," I said. "I've got to go off and do things now. Don't touch anything in the bedrooms, close the door on your way out, and I'll see you this evening at Simpson's in the Strand."

"Simpson's? You mean you're actually paying for a meal?"

"Sir James Damery's client is, John. I've got an expense account for this case, and I'm not afraid to use it."

***

The real reason that I didn't mention the second half of my plan to John, was because even he would have realised it was uninspired and predictable. I went off to Kingston to talk to the Baron. I went to see him partly to get an idea of how dangerous he was, and partly to inspect his house. Oh, and to show off, of course. If you're tackling a would-be master criminal, you want him to know you're...interested.

John, who met Gruner later in the case, described him in the abortive blog post he wrote as "a real aristocrat of crime, with a superficial suggestion of afternoon tea, and all the cruelty of the grave behind it." Which tells you a) that John joining a writers' group was definitely not a good idea, and b) that he should be more careful when Mrs Hudson gives him tea.

He also described the Baron as “A purring cat who thinks he sees prospective mice." I dislike similes and metaphors – all too often they obscure accurate observation with misleading comparisons. So I'll say that Gruner was of medium height, muscular build, with symmetrical features, prominent cheekbones, large dark eyes, and artfully messed black hair. He also had a deep voice, a relatively slow way of speaking, and a falling intonation. A combination, overall, intended to evoke both innate evolutionary responses concerning mate selection, and culturally conditioned romantic ideals.

Which shows, of course, how confused humans can be. Killing's one wife, unless she is infertile, is a poor evolutionary stratagem, and there is nothing less romantic than a paracetamol overdose. Seen in that light, there was nothing sexy about the Baron at all. He was affable though, and able to maintain his affability. Which put him one up on both 'Jim' Moriarty, whose barking insanity tended to come out in any conversation with me lasting more than a minute, and Sebastian Moran, who thought that swearing was clever when done in an RP accent.

"I rather thought I should see you sooner or later, Mr. Holmes," Gruner said to me. "You have been engaged, no doubt by General de Merville, to endeavour to stop my marriage with his daughter, Violet?"

"Not precisely," I said, "but roughly along those lines."

“My dear man,’ he said, "you'll only ruin your own well-deserved reputation. It's not a case in which you can possibly succeed. You'll waste your time, to say nothing of incurring some danger. Let me very strongly advise you to give up now."

"That's curious," I answered, ‘because that's remarkably near the advice I'd intended to give you. Let's be clear, Baron. If you persist in undertaking this marriage you'll make a lot of powerful enemies, who'll never leave you alone while you're in Britain. More specifically, I know several who are experts at rendition. Not as in performing dramatic roles, though at least one of them could also do that rather well. But extraordinary rendition, as in ensuring that you wake up in a Middle Eastern jail – I hear Tunisia has some cells free currently – with unscrupulous guards and no human rights lawyers handy."

The Baron broke into a gentle chuckle.

“Excuse my amusement, Mr. Holmes, but it is really funny to see you trying to play poker with such a pathetic hand. Do you think I would have come to this country if I didn't have...protection from your government?"

"You think so?"

"I know so."

"It may not matter to you what the government thinks of you," I went on, with determination. "But what about Ms de Merville? She might be interested to hear certain facts about your past."

"Let me make something clear to you, Mr Holmes. I have been fortunate enough to win Violet's affection entirely, in spite of the fact that I told her very clearly all the unhappy incidents in my past life. I also told her that certain vicious muckrakers – I hope you recognise yourself - would come to her and tell her these things, and I warned her how to treat them. You'll have heard of neuro-linguistic programming, subliminal messages, and post-hypnotic suggestion, I presume?"

"Of course," I said calmly, "and I know the ways to replicate such procedures and reverse them."

"Then it's a good job I didn't use them, isn't it?" he replied. "Do you know what my hold is on Violet?"

"Tell me."

"Really hot and filthy sex. You're not going to be able to replicate that, are you, Mr Holmes? Not with a woman, at least."

There seemed to be no more to say, so I took my leave with as much cold dignity as I could summon. As I had my hand on the door-handle, Gruner stopped me.

“By the way, Mr. Holmes, did you know Le Brun, the French detective?"

"Yes. I worked with him on the missing Eurostar case."

“Do you know what happened to him recently?"

“I heard that he was beaten a gang in Clichy-sous-Bois and crippled for life."

“Quite true, Mr. Holmes. By a curious coincidence he had been inquiring into my affairs only a week before. Don’t do it, Mr. Holmes; it’s not a lucky thing to do. Several people have found that out. My last word to you is, go your own way and let me go mine. Good-bye!"

***

I told John the gist of the conversation when I met him at Simpson's that evening.

“So there you are, John. You're up to date now.”

“Gruner sounds...dangerous," he said hopefully.

"Doubt it," I said. "It's your screaming lunatics, like Moriarty, who are far more lethal than the quiet ones. But I'm not sure I can see how to gain any leverage against Gruner at the moment."

“Do you have to stick with the case? Does it really matter if he marries the girl?” John always worries if I have cases that end as failures, after the effect on me of being beaten by Irene Adler. (Defeated by Irene Adler, I mean - so wipe that stupid grin off your face right now).

“Considering that he undoubtedly murdered his last wife, I should say it mattered very much. Besides, the money! All right, we won't discuss that. When you've finished your coffee, you'd better come home with me."

John looked hopeful, and I wished I didn't have to disappoint him by adding: "I've got Shinwell coming to give a report."

***

Shinwell is a huge, coarse, red-faced man, with a pair of vivid dark eyes which are the only external sign of the very cunning mind within. I don't know what he was like as a woman, but I always wondered if his success as a sub was partly down to there being so much flesh to dominate. Beside him on the sofa there now sat, and I quote John here: "a slim, flame-like young woman with a pale, intense face, youthful, and yet worn with sorrow, so that you could see the terrible years which had left their mark upon her." Or in other words, a skinny woman burning up from her drug habit and with track marks down her arms. It takes a lot to ruin a woman in the twenty-first century, but diamorphine's one of your better bets.

“This is Kitty Winter,” said Shinwell Johnson, waving his fat hand as an introduction. “What she don’t know — well, there, she’ll speak for herself. Put my hand right on her, Mr. Holmes, within an hour of your message.”

“I’m easy to find,” said the young woman. She spoke with the broad Cockney accent of someone who'd been raised in a nice middle-class suburb, and always resented the fact. "Shooting Alley, London, that's my address. We’re old mates, Porky and me. I hear you're interested in Baron Adelbert Gruner."

She then proceeded to discuss the Baron, with intense hatred in her blazing eyes, and almost total lack of coherence in her speech. John listened intently and made sympathetic noises, and I attempted to wrestle hard facts out of her tiresome ranting. She'd been the Baron's mistress and unfortunately, it sounded as if all he'd done had been treat her cruelly, cheat on her, destroy all her friendships, and drive her to despair and drugs. I say unfortunately, because those are the kind of allegations where 'there's another side to the story', as the gossip columnist idiots put it. What we needed was him to have beaten her, supplied her with drugs himself, or pimped her out. Or would a well-brought up woman like Violet worry that her fiancé used to hire out women for cash? Nowadays, it's hard to keep up with what sexual behaviour is shocking, and what's just strikingly original.

"Most of this is no use," I said eventually, breaking in on her tedious account of a vicious argument over her failure to appreciate a piece of blue and white ware. "You want to stop him marrying Violet de Merville, do you?"

"Course I do. Any sensible girl would run a mile from him."

“Violet isn't sensible, she's madly in love. She's been told all about the Baron and she doesn't care.”

“Told about the murder?”

"She discusses it in minute detail on websites."

"My God, she's got a nerve!”

“She puts it all down as slander.”

“Couldn’t you stick some proof before her silly eyes?”

“Well, can you help us do so?”

“Ain’t I proof myself? If I stood before her and told her how he used me-"

“Would you do that?”

"Course I fucking would!"

“Well, it might be worth trying," I said, which shows you quite how desperate I was by that point. "But Gruner's told her most of his past, and she's forgiven him.”

“I bet he didn‘t tell her everything,” said Ms Winter. “I caught a glimpse of one or two murders besides the one that made such a fuss. He would speak of someone in that silky voice, and then look at me and say: ‘He died within a month.’ It wasn’t hot air, neither. But I didn't take much notice - you see, I loved him myself at the time. Whatever he did went with me, same as with this poor sucker!"

"So when you were in love with him," I asked, "was there anything that worried you about this drug-taking, womanising, murderer?"

As I'd hoped, her sarcasm detector hadn't survived the pharmaceutical onslaught. "There was this one thing," she said. "He had this book."

"Go on," I said.

"A small black leather book with a lock, and his arms in gold on the outside. I think he was a bit high that night, or he wouldn't have shown it to me.”

“What was it, then?”

“Mr. Holmes, he collects women, and that was his catalogue. Photographs, names, measurements, everything about them."

"I see," I said. Old-fashioned to keep details in a book like that, but much less likely to go astray as compared to, say, a PowerPoint presentation. "What happened when he showed it to you?"

"I got a bit upset, obviously. But then he said he'd kept it to preserve his memories of them, but he'd never need to put me in it, because he could never forget me." Even John rolled his eyes at the corniness of that line.

"And where is that book now?"

“Dunno. It’s more than six months since I left him. I know where he kept it then. He’s a tidy man in many ways, so maybe it's still in the pigeon-hole of the old bureau in the inner study. Do you know his house?”

“I’ve been in the study,” I said.

“Have you, though? You haven’t been slow on the job if you only started today. Maybe dear Adelbert's met his match this time. The outer study is the one with the Chinese stuff in it - big glass cupboard between the windows. Then behind his desk is the door that leads to the inner study - a small room where he keeps papers and so on.”

“He's not afraid of burglars?”

“He's not a coward, his worst enemy couldn’t say that of him. He can look after himself. And there’s a burglar alarm he puts on at night and when he goes out. Besides, what is there for a burglar - unless they got away with all that fancy china?”

“No good,” said Shinwell Johnson with the decided voice of experience. "Market's flooded with Chinese stuff at the moment. You can't go anywhere in London now without someone trying to sell you a jade hairpin."

If I'd asked the right question at that point I might have saved us all a lot of trouble. Well, if I'd asked the right question, and got a coherent answer from Kitty Winter, and been able to cross-check my data. As it was, I was reduced to plans so desperate that John approved of them.

"Right," I said. "Well, Ms Winter, if you're available tomorrow, I'll see if I can arrange for us to go and meet Ms de Merville personally. I'm very obliged to you for your cooperation." I got a smile from John for remembering that one. "And I need not say that my clients will be happy to compensate-"

“No way,” the young woman cried. “I'm not out for money. Let me see this man in the shit, and I’ve got all I've worked for."

I took that to mean she'd got enough heroin for the next couple of injections.

**

I still don't know why I bothered to go round to talk to Violet de Merville. The chances that she'd listen to me or even Kitty Winter were no higher than 6%. But if I didn't talk to her, Damery might think I wasn't taking the case seriously, and I didn't want that. And she agreed to see us, so we went round the next afternoon to 104 Berkeley Square, where she was living, in a huge awful gray London house.

Violet de Merville had the kind of pale, self-contained, inflexible and remote beauty that suggested she'd taken a lot of drugs in her past too, and had recently started using Botox. I decided it might well be a good thing that it was Gruner she was obsessed with, because if she'd fallen so hard for a different kind of man, she'd have been happily strapping bombs on herself by this point: she had the air of a fanatic whose thoughts were set on higher things. I'd seen such faces in martyrdom videos.

And when we started to talk to her, it was plain she was not just an idiot, but a high-minded idiot. She was going to redeem Baron Adalbert Gruner if it killed her, which it probably would. I tried to channel John, make myself temporarily at least, into somebody who cared that this idiot was going to do something idiotic, save her from herself. Talked high-minded rubbish about shame, fear, agony, hopelessness, and other emotions that I've heard that non-sociopaths experience. Kitty chimed in, and was surprisingly eloquent for a woman whom you'd have thought had her brains completely scrambled by now. Maybe the capacity to talk sentimental garbage about being 'tempted and used and ruined and thrown into the refuse heap' is the last brain function to go. But her high-mindedness and Violet's high-mindedness unfortunately cancelled each other: tripe and anti-tripe.

***

I started telling John about my meeting with Violet that evening, when we were dining at Simpson's again. He asked whether I'd spotted any nightingales in Berkeley Square, which showed a disturbing ignorance of urban ornithology, and I then gave him a rather softened version of our conversation.

"It ended," I said, "with Ms Winter losing it completely, swearing, and trying to grab Violet de Merville by the hair. I restrained her, dragged her towards the door, and was lucky to get her into a taxi without a public scene. She was beside herself with rage. In a cold way I felt pretty furious myself," I added. John looked sceptically at me.

"OK, in a not-that-cold, more furiously sulky way," I corrected myself. "It was indescribably annoying, given we were trying to help her: the calm aloofness, the supreme complacency. Anyhow, you now know exactly how things stand, and it's clear that I need to plan some fresh move, because that gambit didn't work. I‘ll keep in touch with you, John, it's very likely that you'll have your part to play. Though it's just possible that the next move may lie with them, rather than with us.”

By which I meant that I didn't have a clue what to do, and that I couldn't think straight when John was sitting opposite me in a restaurant anyhow. This was the second evening running I was eating out with him, and it included actual eating on my part, which tells you all you need to know about my confused mental state by then. We'd ordered - no, on second thoughts, I won't tell you what we had – it's all just fuel in the end, and it might offend your pale vegetarian sensibilities

What about the case, I hear a few of you ask, those whose tiny little minds aren't now fantasising about John and I exchanging glances over a table at Simpson's. To which my answer is: what about the sodding case? It's not as if there was anything complex to detect. What Damery really needed was an ordinary private detective to dig up some really juicy dirt on the Baron, and then the paramilitary wing of Relate to get Violet de Merville to listen to it. No need for my unique skills, which were better employed elsewhere.

***

For the next two days, however, I did try and do something constructive about the case. It mainly involved trawling the anti-Gruner websites seeing if any of their allegations might hold up sufficiently to get the Baron put in jail. Then I made what I thought was a breakthrough. Someone on one of the forums, going by the name of GuiltyBert, agreed to meet me, because he said he had definite evidence of Gruner having killed someone in Paris.

In the light of what happened at that meeting, can I point out three things? One is that I met this man in a public spot, outside the old Cafe Royal in Regent Street. The second is that I met him at 11.45 am, and in my experience, there are few thugs who are active before 1 pm at the earliest. The third is that I've had a thorough training in some very obscure martial arts.

Anyhow, I was there early and saw the man arrive. He was a tall well-built man, whom I identified easily as being an ex-butcher, now working as a chauffeur. He was using a cane, but I was sure his limp was psychosomatic. My diagnosis was confirmed thirty seconds after we shook hands, when he started hitting me with the cane. The London crowds flowed round us as we fought, cursing us as an obstruction on the pavement. Well, except, for the few who stopped to watch this exciting piece of street theatre. It was perhaps the consciousness of an appreciative audience that encouraged me to linger, making mocking comments, after I'd swept the man's feet from under him with one smooth and easy move. Which was my mistake, because at that point his accomplice coshed me from behind.

***

I woke up in hospital – a moment's consideration told me that it was Charing Cross, and that I was high up in the tower block, which meant I was in a private patients' room. Then I looked round and saw John sitting at my bedside.

"Afternoon," he said. "I hear you got beaten up again."

I didn't ask how he'd known where I was. Maybe he has some sixth sense that tells him when I'm in trouble. More likely it was Mycroft...or perhaps every A and E department on London now has John on speed-dial, for when I'm brought in. All that mattered though, was that he was there, as usual.

"Do you want me to check you over?" John asked. I nodded, and then wished I hadn't.

It was another familiar routine. His hands started to move gently over my body. It's almost the only time he can touch me and not arouse me, when he's inspecting me for injuries. He finds it reassuring, and given that he's an excellent doctor and knows my body so well, once or twice he's spotted things that hard-pressed casualty departments have missed.

Not this time, though. "Scalp lacerations and a lot of bruising, just like they said," John commented. "Strangely inefficient beating if was Gruner's men, as I presume it was. Do you need me to go and have a word with them?"

"No," I said. My voice was surprisingly weak. "And anyhow, I think it was her thugs rather than his, Violet de Merville's, I mean. It would explain the inefficiency, because you're right, his would have been more forceful. I'd probably have escaped from this unscathed if I'd had the sense to run earlier."

"Story of our lives," John replied cheerfully. "What happened?"

I gave him an edited account, and he politely and kindly pointed out how anyone half-competent could have inflicted near-fatal injuries on me at several points. Then he smiled and said: "I'll go and see about springing you," and wandered off to find some poor junior doctor to hassle, in the nicest possible way.

It took him about an hour, but then he was back, bringing some coffee for me with him.

"You'll be discharged this evening," he said. "I need to get 221B sorted, as in not an infection hazard, so I'll head off there now. Anything else you want?"

"You," I muttered hoarsely.

"Quite possibly, but you need rest first. Anything else?"

"Phone Johnson and tell him to get Kitty Winter out of harm's way, in case Ms de Merville has taken a dislike to her as well."

"Right. I'll come and get you later on. For now stay here and try to relax. Even your body needs a bit of time to mend." He gave me a very chaste, gentle kiss on my forehead and left. I groaned, and wondered if I could ask for more painkillers.

***

As promised, I was taken home that evening and spent the rest of the day in bed, almost blissfully happy. Mainly because John, unlike most A and E staff, is prepared to give me a dose of morphine large enough to have a decent effect. He knows from experience exactly how much I can take without any risk. And of course, I was happy just having John around. There are times I think he's wasted at a doctor: he'd have made a damn good nurse.

That sounds patronising, and it's not meant to be. Too many doctors treat patients as a collection of symptoms, conditions, diseases; a good nurse can make you feel that you matter as a person, help you heal at all kinds of levels. Although, admittedly, some forms of John's care would get him had up for professional misconduct if I was officially his patient.

***

I'd asked him to put out an exaggerated account of my injuries, say I was in serious danger, and get Gruner and de Merville off their guard. His blog post was suitably alarmist, with comments about concussion, and delirium, and infection risks. 28 minutes after he'd posted it, when he'd gone to make himself a well-deserved cup of tea, the first comment arrived, from Harry.

 _Yeah, yeah, of course Sherlock's really seriously injured, that's why he's back at Baker Street and not in intensive care somewhere. Oh, wait. But I'm sure you don't want to be disturbed for a bit, so have a nice shagfest guys. ;-)._

I deleted the comment. John finds Harry hard enough to cope with at the best of times. Especially when she's indiscreetly and completely right.

***

I was in the middle of a case and yet I supposedly spent a week recovering from some not particularly serious injuries. With John 'coming in each morning' and making 'continual visits', as he put it in his blog posts. Do I need to draw diagrams? (No, I'm not going to. You sicken me sometimes, you really do). And do you understand now why I insisted that John moved out when we got together?

It's for his sake as much as mine. Because John that week cancelled or rearranged all the shifts he could, left his dog to be cared for by his landlady and his flatmate, missed his writers' group meeting, skipped nights out with his friends, and barely left 221B except to get supplies. When John came home from Afghanistan he was pretty much addicted to adrenaline, the thrill of adventure. I cured him of that. Now he's just addicted to me.

Oh, he swears off me, of course, on a regular basis. That's why Queen Anne Street is useful for him, as well as me. He can go off there for a few weeks, be with his dog, and talk to Miss Morland, his elderly landlady, and to a succession of young and mostly Australian female flatmates, to whom he is the world's straightest-acting gay friend. He can work as a locum, and live the kind of humdrum life that he says he really wants. And then, something'll crack, and he'll be chasing after villains with me again, or fucking my brains out in a hotel room, and he'll be happy for a bit, we both will be. After that, we go our separate ways: he goes back to trying to be normal, and I go back to being great, but not good.

***

I'm not going to tell you about that week. I couldn't anyhow, it's beyond words. Think of the most beautiful equation you've ever seen, and that's the nearest you'll get: eiπ \+ 1 = 0, that's John and I together. John as 1, the one, of course. The identity element, makes you what you are, what you should be. Myself, I'm zero, the annihilator, reduces everything to nothingness. And i, naturally, is love: a useful construct for deriving theorems, but in the last resort utterly imaginary. Pi and e - who the fuck knows? That's the other reason I dislike metaphors: if you do try using them, they never end up working properly.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's attempts to prevent the villanous Baron Gruner from marrying the young, rich, and beautiful Violet de Merville have ended up with him being attacked, and then spending a week in bed, allegedly dying...

[From the Sherlock Holmes in Transcript (SHT) project, version 1.0]

As the fractionally more observant among you have may have noticed, so far my detective exploits on this case had consisted of two unsuccessful interviews, buying information from an informer, and getting beaten up. Oh, and a lot of sex. But at this point I realised that Damery might want some actual results, and I also got a message from my informant at the US embassy. Adelbert Gruner was going to America in three days time. Apparently killing your wife didn't count as 'moral turpitude' for the purposes of the Visa Waiver Program. It hit me hard: I always have problems getting into the States because of the drugs conviction I have from my teens, which not even Mycroft has managed to erase completely from official records. If I was going to deal with the Baron, I needed to act quickly. Fortunately, I'm very good at doing that.  
   
"Gruner's trying to put himself out of danger’s way," I announced, after ten minutes contemplation of the e-mail. "But he won‘t manage it. John, I want you to do something for me.”  
   
“I'm here to be used, Sherlock.”   
   
God, I wish he wouldn't say things like that. It took all of my self-control to concentrate on explaining my plan to him.  
   
***  
   
Once I'd remembered that John wasn't going to allow me to carry out any plan that involved burning down a house (not after Irene Adler), what had to be done was obvious to the meanest intelligence. I had to get hold of Gruner's little black book, by breaking into his house. The question was how? A successful break-in when he was away would require the kind of meticulous planning and logistics that takes forever and bores me rigid. I like things quick and dirty. Some things. It would be much easier to break into the house when the Baron was there, terrorise him, or at least tie him up, and get the book then.  
   
The problem with that plan was John. The problem with many of my plans nowadays is John. I couldn't go and attack Vernon Lodge without John, he'd never forgive me. But he's surprisingly reluctant to break into people's houses unprovoked, even if it's likely to lead to violence. Especially if it's likely to lead to violence. I suspect he probably got indoctrinated with Just War theory at some point, or just got some firm talking-tos from his mother. He's only really happy with fighting if he can feel the other person's started it. (It explains a lot about Afghanistan).  
   
So I needed to have John along there, ready to take down the Baron if he got dangerous. And, ideally, I needed a woman there as well. Because the one thing that you can guarantee will get John willing to fight is if someone's attacking a woman. He's a chivalric idiot, my John, even now he's come out. So, we needed myself, a woman and John all at Vernon Lodge, under the pretext that there wasn't going to be any violence.  
   
Once I had those parameters, it was simple to come up with a plan that I could persuade someone with John's level of gullibility to adhere to. He would distract Gruner, while I burgled the house, bringing Kitty Winter along to show me where to look for the book. A keen mind would have seen the many flaws in this plan. John, who is moderately bright, pointed out one of the more obvious ones. How was he going to distract the Baron?  
   
"You need to spend the next twenty-four hours in an intensive study of Chinese pottery.” I  
told him.  
   
***  
   
John didn't argue, just asked where he should start. "Not with Wikipedia," I said firmly. I gave him the URLs of a couple of websites and the name of someone at the British Museum, and told him to try the London Library as well.  
   
"Didn't Sir James say that the Baron had written a book on the subject?" John said. He's only a semi-idiot, at most. "I'd better read that, hadn't I?"  
   
"Yes, of course," I replied. "I know where I can get hold of a copy of it today. But I've been told it's long and very tedious, so you should start with some more basic stuff first."  
   
"OK," he said. "No promises about the end results, but I'll see what I can do. So back here tomorrow morning?"  
   
"Yes, please."  
   
***  
   
John's conscientious, and he's good at exams, and his visual memory is a lot better since I started training him. I was impressed by how much he'd learnt by the time he turned up the next day, though he looked exhausted. I was out of bed – I didn't want to distract him again – sitting in my chair, trying to rearrange the bandage on my head yet again. One of my scalp wounds had got opened up again a couple of days ago, when John had accidentally bashed my head with his knee at a rather critical moment.  
   
John rebandaged me with remarkable efficiency and then sat down opposite me, but well out of range.  
   
"And now, John, have you learned your lesson?” I asked.  
   
"About not letting you insist your stitches should be taken out too early, or Chinese pottery?" he said grinning. I glared at him.  
   
“I've tried to,” he added hastily.  
   
“Good. You could keep up an intelligent conversation on the subject? Well, when I say intelligent-”  
   
"I can certainly make sensible noises when someone who knows more than I do informs me of my almost complete ignorance."  
   
“That's a start. Then hand me that little box from the mantelpiece.”  
   
I opened the lid and took out a small object carefully wrapped in acid-free tissue paper. Then I unfolded it, and disclosed a delicate little saucer with the pattern of a basket of fruit on it.  
   
“This needs careful handling. It's a rare Ming dynasty piece, from the late sixteenth century."  
   
"Wucai style, isn't it?" said John, coming over to look. "And the Eight Treasures on the...bit at the edge of the rim that has a technical name I can't remember."  
   
"The cavetto. Not bad, John," I said. "This is a particularly fine piece. A complete set of this would be worth a fortune, if there was one in existence, which I doubt there is. Just the sight of this piece would drive a real connoisseur wild.”  
   
“So what am I to do with it?”  
   
I handed him a business card printed with “Dr. Hill Barton, 369 Half Moon Street" and an e-mail address.  
   
“That's your name for the evening. You're going to phone Baron Gruner and ask him if it's all right to call tonight, round about half-past eight, because you've got a specimen of an absolutely unique set of Ming china. I think you should stick to being a doctor, and yes, there is a Hill Barton in the Medical Register, if he happens to check. This set has come your way, you've heard of the Baron’s interest in the subject, and you're willing to sell at a price.”  
   
“What price?”  
   
“Well asked. This saucer had been borrowed from the collection of Sir James Damery's client. You can say that it could hardly be matched in the world, and that a much inferior specimen went for 65,000 US dollars at auction at the end of 2009."  
   
“Perhaps I could suggest that the whole set should be valued by an expert.”  
   
“Excellent, John! You're near coherent today. Suggest Christie's or Sotheby's. Your delicacy prevents your giving a price yourself. Well, actually, your urge to screw every last penny out of him."  
   
"What about provenance?"  
   
"As I said, you're a collector."  
   
"Sherlock, if I'm claiming to be a doctor, even a top-notch consultant isn't going to have the kind of money to have bought this sort of stuff. And I'm pretty sure I don't look like a high-powered consultant."  
   
"Good point," I said. "Come to think of it, Gruner's a crook. Therefore, it's probably best if you are as well, he'll be happier dealing with that. So you are going to be a man who has had certain dealings with an antiquities smuggling gang, has 'collected' things for them from China on occasions."  
   
"You mean you want me to pretend to be General Shan's front man?"  
   
"Something like that, yes."  
   
"Do I look like a crook?"  
   
"No, which is fairly useful for a front man. You phone Gruner now, he's sure to be willing to see you, he's an obsessive collector. But make sure it's not till this evening, eight-thirty if possible. I always prefer to carry out burglaries when 'Coronation Street' is on, the little old ladies are more likely to be distracted."  
   
   
***  
   
John made the call and then sat back down.  
   
"I suppose I'd better do some more cramming," he said, reluctantly. "You said you had Gruner's own book, I ought at least to glance at that."  
   
He's too conscientious sometimes. I had my own reason for not wanting him to read it, and I saw a handy way of ensuring he didn't.  
   
"OK," I said, "The book's here, but I'll need the sitting room shortly for an experiment, and it'll be noisy and messy. So I suggest you go up and read in your old bedroom."  
   
I went up half an hour later, and he was out cold on the bed, Gruner's book tumbled from his hand. John's an extraordinary man in many ways, but he's really not up to all-nighters anymore. I watched him for a while. He looked...it doesn't matter how he looked, or what I felt. All that matters is the work, and I was now confident he wasn't going to be up to speed on Gruner's research.  
   
***  
   
I woke John up late in the afternoon - enough time for him to get organised for the trip out, but not enough for him to get cold feet. And then I sent him on his way with the saucer. John believed, or at least hoped, that he could distract the Baron for long enough to allow me to complete the burglary and leave quietly. I was 99% sure he couldn't, especially since he hadn't read Gruner's book, and so would probably come off as implausibly ignorant. Which meant that Gruner would have a chance to come and attack me and Kitty, which meant John would have a cast-iron excuse to give Gruner the beating he so clearly deserved. I'd get the book, John would get the justified violence he needs every now and then to satiate him, without damaging me, and Gruner would get what he had coming to him. 'Result', as the more moronic among you might say. As long as the saucer didn't get broken, because then I'd have to resort to blackmailing my own client.  
   
***  
   
Almost as soon as John had gone, I headed off. I was meeting Kitty Winter at 221B in 20 minutes, which gave me just time enough to get to Queen Anne Street and back, because I needed to break into John's flat. Well, technically it wasn't breaking in, because I'd picked his pockets for the keys on his way out. He's a bit wary of letting me go to his flat now, so I thought it easier not to ask.  
   
I wanted one of John's woolly hats and scarf to wear for when I carried out my burglary. In theory, any hat would do to disguise the bandage on my head, but a stupid-looking one would be best, and John's hats are invariably stupid-looking, especially when worn by me. You see me out normally, you might think I'm mad, bad, and dangerous to know. You see me out in one of John's woolly hats and you think I'd mad, sad, and tedious to know. Your eyes automatically avert themselves, in case I catch your gaze and start talking to you. And if you did try and give an description of me, it would just be 'a tall thin man, with a stupid hat on" which isn't much help to the police.  
   
It may occur to the slightly more logical among you that there's no reason why I couldn't buy such a hat for myself, and keep it handy at 221B, suitably concealed. The less logical among you will understand why I preferred one of John's hats, and why I had to remember to give it back to him at the end of the evening. It was all right for tonight, there was nothing I needed to think clearly about, and he'd be there anyhow. But I can't keep things of John's about at 221B, especially not things he's worn. It's...unhelpful. One of the things I was going to have to make sure after tonight, was that John and all his possessions were safely back at Queen Anne Street where they belonged. Or by tomorrow lunchtime, at least. I'd let him stay for too long already as it was. Too long for both of us.  
   
***  
   
If you have so little self-esteem that you've read this far, even though you know you're going to be justifiably insulted about your inadequate brains, let me warn you now. Do. Not. Pity. Me. Because you know what I'll do, if you start to pity me? Simple. I'll stop this recording, so you won't find out the end of the story. Do we understand one another? Good. Then I'll continue.  
   
***  
   
I collected a suitably ridiculous woolly hat from John's flat – it was all quiet there, since his flatmate had had an unexpected offer of a free meal at Angelo's that evening - and left a little present for him to find later. John's sense of smell is nothing like as sensitive as mine, so it wouldn't bother him that I'd been wearing his clothes. He's more visually stimulated, so what I left, under a pile of his magazines in the living room, were some photographs of me. He normally has a clear-up every couple of weeks, just before the recycling's due, so he'd find them then. Of course, it was just possible that the current Australian – Jilli, I believe her name is - was more tidy than her predecessors and might find them first. But it wouldn't do any harm to remind her that John was just her _gay_ best friend.  
   
When I got back to 221B, I found Kitty Winter, there, as instructed. Also as instructed, she was not so wasted as to be useless. Nevertheless, it was easy for me to spot that she had a syringe lurking in her coat. I thought I knew why she had it. I couldn't have been more wrong.  
   
***  
   
We got a cab out to what John described as the 'beautiful house and grounds ' of Vernon Lodge, though in fact it was a huge Victorian architectural nightmare, with turrets at its corners. The house was well-protected against burglars: security locks, mortice window bolts and the like, but I still got in easily...by using techniques which I will be happy to reveal if you pay me sufficiently large sums of money. Then Kitty led me to the inner study, and pointed me to the bureau. I started to ransack it, carefully not being quite as quiet as I could be. Kitty was standing around nervously, fiddling with the syringe, which she'd now got half-out of her pocket. I'd realised by now that I hadn't got her plan quite right first time. She hadn't just brought it with her in case she needed a fix. She was going to take the heroin, probably enough for an overdose, and then she was going to collapse and die in Gruner's house. Not a bad plan, I couldn't help feeling, it might give even Violet de Merville pause for thought.  
   
I was deliberately taking far too long finding the book, which would have terrified Kitty if she wasn't obviously angling for a confrontation with the Baron as well. So we both pretended that we were in a hurry, while surreptitiously waiting for John's disguise to be penetrated. I was just getting concerned that he'd prepped too well, when I heard Gruner's voice say, rather too loudly:   
   
"So tell me a little about the Northern Wei dynasty and its place in the history of ceramics.”  
   
I couldn't hear John's words clearly, just his fake angry tone (that's one I know particularly well), and then Gruner was yelling about me, and scrabbling around for something. Time for a move, I thought and dropped the saucer I'd brought with me on a handy table, from high enough up that it broke. It was a cheap thing from home, and I suspected that the sound was subtly different from breaking a fine piece of Chinese porcelain - how I wish I'd been in a position to check - but it was enough. The Baron came rushing into the room, I moved swiftly away from him, and Kitty Winter, with far more co-ordination than I'd have expected, squirted the syringe in his face. From the screaming, I gathered that it was something rather more corrosive than heroin. More like sulphuric acid. She dropped the syringe and ran past me. I picked it up carefully, checked that it was indeed concentrated sulphuric acid, and then wondered if it would be correct burglar's etiquette just to leave the Baron in agony where he was.  
   
At this point, some smartarse may point out that a syringe full of sulphuric acid and a syringe full of heroin do not look anything like one another, and I should have realised that right from the start. To which my reply is: Piss off and read Agatha Christie! Or write something earnest about unreliable narrators. The CPS believed my story (with a lot of nudging from Sir James Damery), so you can as well.  
   
***  
   
I would actually have buggered off at that point, but John had followed after Gruner – fortunately not quickly enough to be in any danger – and was now in caring doctor mode, doing his best to rinse the acid off the Baron's disfigured face. I decided I had to stay and help him, because one of the things I've now learned is never to leave John behind in the mess of someone else's crime. I thought it was funny when I first knew him, his getting an ASBO for the spray painting Raz had done. Then I saw him on the day he was going to court, straight-backed, and dressed up in a suit, and miserable beyond belief, because inside his head, he's still a soldier and never a criminal. I got him off that time, and I've made sure he's never been in that kind of situation again. I still don't understand why the ASBO meant so much to him, when he is prepared to kill someone with an illegally-held handgun if necessary. (I mean, of course, that strictly hypothetically, he would be prepared to kill someone). But the thing about moral compasses, like real ones, is that even the best of them don't point to true north, but magnetic north, and you have to make certain allowances for that. (This paragraph now contains not just a digression, but figurative language – you begin to understand the deleterious effect associating with John has had on my logical processes?)  
   
***  
   
Eventually the paramedics turned up, and then the police. I gave them a brief and mostly accurate outline of what had happened, and then told John to meet me back at 221B the next morning. I suspected he'd end up going along to the hospital to make sure Gruner was OK, and maybe after that need to go out and have a drink with someone, unwind. John's not squeamish, but seeing someone's face half-burnt away is enough to make anyone feel traumatised.  
   
Anyone normal that is. I went back to 221B with Gruner's black book. If I felt exhausted, and even a bit shaky, that was just because I hadn't been out much in the last few days. But however rough I felt, there was still work to be done.  
  
***  
   
When I looked through Gruner's little book of women, I felt a momentary qualm. The stuff was just too tame. When the tabloids and even the broadsheets, never mind the net, are full of the sex lives of the famous, what's shocking about a man cataloguing every partner he's ever had? Especially since Baron Gruner's activities seemed to be a lot blander than, say, Max Mosley's. But then I got to the last entry, about Kitty Winter. She looked a lot better before she'd taken to drugs, but that wasn't what caught my attention. What did was what should have occurred to me a long time ago. Dates.  
   
***  
   
John turned up next morning, and found Sir James Damery collecting the book. And the saucer, which I had fortunately thought to collect before the police took it as evidence.  
   
"Remember," I told Damery, "when someone shows this to Ms de Merville, the key thing is in the last profile, and the date when the Baron finished with Kitty Winter."  
   
"Thank you," Damery said, "My client will be eternally grateful to you."  
   
"Just until his cheque's cleared is long enough for me," I replied.  
   
"What I should do with the book afterwards?" he asked.  
   
"It's a foul book," I said solemnly. "Not even the gutter press could put together something so awful. You should destroy it."  
   
"Quite right," he said, and shaking my hand, he left. John, who is rather more used to me, just folded his arms, and once Damery had gone, asked: "Photocopied?"  
   
"Scanned," I said. "High quality images. Once I've removed some of the identifying details of the women, I think the editors of the Evil Gruner website will be delighted to have copies."  
   
"You're impossible," he said. "Especially when the guy's not got much of a face left."  
   
"Some people say you shouldn't kick a man when he's down. I say that's when he's most convenient for your feet."  
   
John smirked, and then he was silent for a moment.  
   
"I'm sorry I didn't manage to keep the Baron occupied for long enough that you could make your getaway," he said at last, and for once I wasn't sure whether he meant it or not. Associating with me has made him better at concealing his feelings. Some of his feelings.  
   
"It was my fault for being too slow and too noisy," I said. "And for not realising what Kitty Winter was going to do." I'm less good at concealing my feelings from him now, and I could see him process the information.  
   
"Can you really say he didn't deserve it?" I added. "He's killed a number of people, and he's a bloody boring writer on ceramics."  
   
John smiled. "So what next?"  
   
I smiled back, and he rolled his eyes.  
   
"I meant on the case," he said firmly. "I saw the Baron last night in hospital. His face was like-"  
   
"Don't try and describe it," I said, trying to sound pained by the thought of the Baron's face, and not John's descriptive powers. "But it wouldn't end the marriage. Women of the De Merville type don't act like that. She would love him even more as a disfigured martyr."  
   
"Thank God, men aren't like that," said John, with a surprisingly cheeky grin. "But do you really think showing Violet de Merville the book will put her off, then?"  
   
"I think one bit will," I said. "Violet de Merville may not care about most of Gruner's past partners, but he only broke up finally with Kitty in February of this year."  
   
"And?"  
   
"The series of 'The Rich are Different' when she met him was filmed last October. The Baron with his face half-destroyed, fine by her. The Baron destroying and murdering other women, she can probably also cope with. Him two-timing her when they were dating, more than a bit not good, I suspect. But we shall see. Now, unless there was anything further you wanted to say..."  
   
***  
   
Three days later the 3 am website announced that Violet de Merville had broken off her engagement to the 'now distinctly rough looking' Adalbert Gruner and had been seen out clubbing with a minor royal. He hadn't been on my list of possible clients, but his father had been; I'd been wrong about the paternal interest bit after all. The Kingston Guardian website, meanwhile, reported that Kitty Winter, the main suspect in a "horrifying acid attack on Kingston man" had not yet been traced. She never was. Perhaps she died (people do, especially heroin addicts), perhaps she changed her name, perhaps she is even now undergoing rehab in some particularly boring bit of the North Ayrshire countryside. Who amongst us - other than me, of course – can tell?  
   
***  
   
So to sum up – as Sir James Damery would so tediously say – what was the result of the case? The Baron got disfigured. My illustrious client, or at least his son, ended up with Violet de Merville. I'd say the Baron came off best. He only got his face burnt away, but being in love, especially with Violet de Merville, would be like having the guts burnt out of you. Yes, that's a simile, well spotted. God, it's painful imagining you trying to identify logical inconsistencies in my account, your mind's not designed for it.  
   
As for me, I got a decent sum of money, no criminal charges and a lot of sex with John, so you can say I came off best. Which isn't surprising, really. I'm Sherlock Holmes and I'm a winner. Whereas, if you've had the time and energy to read all this way, you're almost certainly a loser. But this is the end of the story anyhow, because I'm bored now with telling it, so stop bothering me, and PISS OFF! 


End file.
